from The New York Times
Devastation, Now Salvage, Page by Page
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A sad reminder of how a tiny spark can set off a whole disaster and the importance of good disaster-salvage planning. A fire, set off by a electrical short at the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Germany, has caused irreparably damage to about 10 percent of the library's collection of a million books.

"The texts in Weimar were of a special nature in that they had their own history," said Michael Knoche, the library's director since 1991, emphasizing their personal connections with the greats of German literature. "They were used by Goethe, Schiller and Wieland. They wrote on the book covers, or margins." Goethe was himself administrator of the library, which was established in 1691.

At present, the Library is preoccupied with concerns for rebuilding the Baroque library building and the book collection and the restoration of the damaged books. The immediate treatment of the damaged books is being carried out by the Center for Book Conservation in Leipzig and further restoration would depend on possibilities of financial support.